Welcome to the 2017 edition of my annual Henry Bemis article, in which I reflect on the media I consumed over the last 365 days.

Books
I read 23 books last year.

The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Arena Mode by Blake Northcott

The Goblin Crown by Robert Hewitt Wolfe

Saturdays at Sea by Jessica Day George

Kingdom Keepers: The Return, Book 3: Disney At Last by Ridley Pearson

Ones and Zeroes by Dan Wells

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Will Wilder: The Relic of Perilous Falls by Raymond Arroyo

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’engle

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Railsea by China Mieville

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine

Prototype D by Jason D. Morrow

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Between the Shadow and Lo by Lauren Sapala

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Will Wilder: The Lost Staff of Wonders by Raymond Arroyo

Uncertain Summer by Jessica Lee Anderson

Fairy Keeper (World of Aluvia Book 1) by Amy Bearce

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

The list would be longer, except near the end of November, I began reading Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. And it is a Very Long Book.

Going into the year, I was especially excited for Kingdom Keepers: The Return, Book 3: Disney At Last by Ridley Pearson and Saturdays at Sea by Jessica Day George, as each is the conclusion of a series I’ve much enjoyed. And I liked both of those books, too, but neither one was my favorite in its series.

My two favorites were The Night Circus and When You Reach Me. Both are really unique takes on common fantasy elements — magic and time travel, respectively — and I thoroughly enjoyed both.

Ones and Zeroes and The Lost Kingdom of Bamarre were reminders of why Dan Wells and Gail Carson Levine are two of my favorite authors. I’m at the point where I’ll buy any new book from either of them based solely on the byline.

Perhaps the most unlikely-for-me book on the list is Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, but it is one of the books that has stuck with me the longest. It might be the only one on the list this year that caused me to stay up way past my bedtime reading. Months later, I still remember specific scenes, and I’ve adopted some of Cather Avery’s phrases into my personal vocabulary. I adored that book.

Movies
I made it to a movie theater four times this year! That might be the most in-theater movies I’ve seen in a year since I was a teenager. Of the four, my favorites were Justice League and Wonder Woman. I really couldn’t pick one favorite between the two of them. Wonder Woman is undoubtedly the tighter, better-focused story, but the sheer fun factor of Justice League makes it equal. Plus, Justice League featured Superman giving The Flash a super-speed side-eye:

The other two movies I saw were Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Beauty and the Beast. I didn’t leave the theater dissatisfied a single time.

TV
I wasn’t crazy about The Flash season 3, which I watched on Netflix. Savitar, Killer Frost, Doctor Alchemy… all of those aspects of the show were just OK or boring to me. But HR Wells was a gift to humanity. By far, he was the best Wells the show has featured yet. And the first half of season 4, which I’ve been watching every week on The CW? Amazing. The Thinker is the best villain the show has had since Reverse-Flash, and maybe better. This could be the best season yet.

Supergirl season 2 was good, but nothing like season 1. We finally got to see Superman, but we lost Cat Grant, at least for much of the season. And while Guardian is pretty cool, I think the writers have no idea what to do with Jimmy Olson anymore. I like Lena Luthor, though, and I’m glad she’s gotten a bigger role in season 3. But that’s about all the good I can say about the first half of season 3. It’s been OK. But Reign just doesn’t do much for me as a Big Bad. And why does Kara have to spend the season all mopey? Living Ray of Sunshine Kara is always the best part of Supergirl, along with the Danvers sisterhood.

Hey, here’s a game I play when watching Supergirl. See if you can spot all the times some kind of lame excuse is used to explain why Martian Manhunter can’t use one of his powers when that power would solve the current problem in seconds. “Darn, I can’t read their minds — they must have some kind of psychic shield!” “Would you look at that, I can’t phase through that wall for some reason. We’ll have to find another way in.”

The Crown season 1 was really great. Every episode left me eager to discuss it and to read Wikipedia articles about the real-life subjects. What I’ve seen so far of season 2 is equally good. Voltron seasons 3 and 4 were both excellent, but I wish they’d just kept them a single season. I especially loved the flashbacks to the creation of the lions and the original Alfor-led Voltron Force.

Stranger Things 2 is not on this list because I haven’t had a chance to sit down and watch it yet.

Looking Ahead
In 2018, the novel I’m most looking forward to is book 3 in Dan Wells’s Mirador series, Active Memory. In TV, I can’t get enough of The Flash season 4. I can’t wait to see how Barry’s fight against The Thinker ends… and at this point, The Thinker’s ultimate goal hasn’t even been revealed yet!

There is no movie I am more looking forward to than Wreck-It Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet.

It’s going to be a great year for people who like stories. Lord, please don’t let me break my glasses.

Filed under: Personal]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2018/01/02/2017-in-review-reading-movies-and-tv/feed/5mripplingerHenryBemisSupermanSeesTheFlashThe season of hopehttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/12/26/the-season-of-hope/
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It’s the Christmas season, the season of hope. Around this time last year, when I finished the first draft of Tomorrow’s Shepherd, the sequel to Yesterday’s Demons, I mentioned how grateful I was to finish it at this time of year because hope is the book’s theme. It’s now one year and one draft later. I’ve spent a lot of that time thinking about hope, and I have some observations.

The three theological virtues, famously mentioned by St. Paul in the beautiful 1 Corinthians 13, are faith, hope, and love. “Everybody, everybody wants to love, and everybody, everybody wants to be loved,” as Ingrid Michaelson sings. I think faith is equally well understood. But I consider hope to be the most often confused theological virtue.

The Christian definition of faith is the belief in the truths God has revealed based solely on a personal decision to believe them. In a wider, more casual sense, it’s the belief in something despite a lack of physical evidence. The theological meaning of hope, on the other hand, is confidence in eternal life; its “pop culture” definition is, “I have no proof XYZ will happen, but I believe it will.”

Hope is sometimes incorrectly labeled as faith. “I have faith my team will win the championship!” No, you don’t. You hope your team will win the championship. This is a common confusion. Faith is a belief in past things you can’t see. Hope is the belief a certain future event will occur.

The most romantic of the three theological virtues is… well, it’s love, of course. But hope is a close second! Hope is at the very core of a lot of epic stories. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins is a living embodiment of Middle-earth’s hope for peace. Luke Skywalker is the embodiment of hope in Star Wars, and Rogue One teaches us rebellions are built on hope.

One of my favorite hopeful moments from any story is the ending of Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “The Wish.” Cordelia’s wish for a Buffy-free world takes her to an alternate Sunnydale overrun with vampires. When Giles discovers Anya’s necklace is the talisman responsible for that dark world, he prepares to smash it.

Anya: “You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any better than this?”
Giles: “Because it has to be.”

The opposite of hope is despair. And that brings me to my final observation. This world needs a lot more hope. We seem far more inclined to despair than to hope, and that’s sad.

I see this all the time in politics. I remember a co-worker in the early 2000s declared George W. Bush to be the worst President ever – “the worst!” I haven’t talked to that guy in some time, but I reckon since November 2016, he has a new candidate in mind for the “worst President ever” award, if you know what I mean. And Democrats aren’t the only ones who despair. Look at how many Republicans didn’t simply consider Barack Obama a President they disagreed with, but a President who was actively trying to destroy America.

Living in despair is no way to live. I’m not saying the injustices and challenges of the world should be ignored, but we should never see them as permanent or insurmountable. We should not despair, especially in this final week of the year.

Sharon is a recent college graduate who spends her work week at the lab and her weekends at Disneyland. She didn’t think her favorite place in the world could get any more magical, but that was before Walt Disney himself began spending every Disneyland Sunday with her. Only Sharon can tell that it’s him, and their time together is nothing but wonder, until Walt tells her she has a wish she’s not ready to make. What’s the real reason Walt befriended her?

“Call Me Walt” is my love letter to Disneyland and to the extraordinary man who created it. Part one was published last week. This is the conclusion of the story, published in celebration of this 116th anniversary of Walt’s birth.

Sharon watched Frontierland go by from her seat on the Disneyland Railroad. It was almost time for ice cream, but she was not in the mood for ice cream.

“Are we getting off at the Tomorrowland station?” Walt asked. “Or the next time we get to Main Street? Or shall we begin a third grand circle tour around the magic kingdom?”

The railroad chugged past the waterfalls. The secret entrance to the cave where they stored the floats for Fantasmic! was obvious if you knew where to look. And Sharon knew where to look. But she didn’t look.

When the train resumed after a brief stop at the Tomorrowland station, Walt folded his arms across the lapels of his suit. “If you leave what we do entirely up to me, I’ll tell you right now, we’re going to ride my railroad. A lot.”

“I read about Snow White,” Sharon said.

Walt raised one eyebrow. She speaks, at last.

“The first feature-length animated motion picture in history,” she said.

Walt nodded. His smile carried a wisp of pride. “You have seen it, haven’t you?”

“No one had ever made an animated feature before it,” she said. “What made you want to try?”

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible,” Walt said.

That cracked through Sharon’s malaise enough to make her smile.

“We were doing well with the Silly Symphonies and, of course, with Mickey,” Walt said. “But I knew we could do so much more. Took us a long time to get it right, though. Boy, we broke that story so many times. Went back and forth on what the Evil Queen should be like. And I don’t remember how many sets of seven dwarf names we went through.”

“Did they really call it Disney’s Folly?”

Was he embarrassed that she’d brought it up? For a moment, he looked like it. But then the character, the showman, the Walt Disney was back, and he chuckled. “Some did, yes.”

“Some including your brother Roy? And your wife?”

“There were some tense times,” Walt admitted.

“Why?” Sharon asked, loud enough to make Walt startle. “Why would you do something when the entire world was telling you not to?”

“Why do you sound almost angry about it?” he asked. “It’s been over eighty years since any of this happened.”

“I read on Wikipedia you mortgaged your own private home to raise the money to make the film. Why would you do such a thing? What would you have done if it hadn’t been successful?”

“I just made sure it was successful.”

“Look,” she said as the train entered the tunnel containing the Grand Canyon and Primeval World dioramas. “You always mention that we need to visit Snow White’s Grotto, and last week, you told me it wouldn’t be time for that until I was ready to make a wish. I’ve been thinking about that almost non-stop. About what you said, and about the making of Snow White. I think I’m starting to understand what this is all about.”

“Well, that makes one of us.”

“You said you just wanted to see Disneyland through the eyes of the young, but that’s not what this is about,” she said, loud enough for a few heads to turn in her direction. “That’s not what this has ever been about.”

He didn’t deny it. On the contrary, the twinkle in his eye almost dared her to say it.

She shook her head. “I can’t. Sorry, but I can’t. And if you think I can, it’s because you don’t really know me at all.”

“You can’t what?”

“Don’t play dumb with me! I know what you want me to do. And I can’t. You’re not my father, you understand? My dad is up in Emeryville, working day and night, and so is my mom. You have no idea all they’ve done for me. All they’ve sacrificed. All they’ve wanted for me.”

Walt folded his hands in his lap and looked her in the eye. “No, I’m not your father, Sharon. But I’m a father. And the most important thing to me is my girls’ happiness. I imagine the same is true for your folks. I know you want to be happy, everyone does. But you’re only happy one day a week. Now, you know exactly how to change that, but something is holding you back. Why won’t you tell me what that is?”

The train came to a stop at the Main Street Station. Sharon disembarked and practically ran back to street level and out the park gates. She didn’t care if she ever saw Walt again. Heck, she almost didn’t care if she ever saw Disneyland again. She went straight to the parking tram, rode back to the parking garage, and sped down I-5 back home.

Who did he think he was, trying to tell her how to live her life?

Who did he think he was?

He was Walter Elias Disney. The man who made a career out of making magic. Out of inventing the impossible. He built an entire company that embodied the idea, “If we can dream it, we can do it.”

Sharon could dream it. But she still wasn’t sure she could do it.

As soon as she went through the turnstiles, she marched straight up Main Street, walked a path adjacent to Sleeping Beauty Castle, and stepped into Snow White’s Grotto. Statues of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves perched atop rocks in the midst of a waterfall. In front of the statues, there was a well that looked just like the one Snow White drew water from in the film. When you threw a coin in it, you heard Snow White sing, “I’m Wishing.” It was one of the most peaceful places in the park, and one of the most popular places for marriage proposals.

Of course, Walt was there. Waiting for her with his unspoken proposal. Not of marriage, of course, but a proposal for her future.

She thrust her empty palms upward. Where did she even begin? “What if I can’t support myself? What if I can’t pay off my student loans? Loans that would be pointless, I might add. I’m afraid of wasting my education. I’m—”

She leaned on the wishing well and stared down at the water inside it. This was all just filler. There was really only one thing she was afraid of.

“I’m scared to death of being a disappointment to my parents.”

Walt meandered closer to the well until he was standing right next to her. “When I made Snow White, I didn’t mind the criticism from the other studios. Or even from Roy. I knew he’d get over it. But when Lillian expressed her doubts… that was the one time I almost canned the whole thing. Because if I didn’t have the support of Lillian, then I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it.”

Sharon closed her eyes. The thought of telling Mom and Dad… She couldn’t bear being a failure in their eyes. She couldn’t bear being a quitter in their eyes.

“She may not have believed I was right about the feature until it was a success,” Walt said. “But she believed in it because she believed in me. Your parents will do the same.”

“Were you scared, too?” Sharon asked.

“A little,” Walt said.

“You’re not supposed to say you were only a little afraid. You’re supposed to say you were terrified.”

Walt hugged his arms around himself tightly. “Sharon, I was scared out of my mind!”

She laughed and cried at the same time.

“The ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ sequence from Fantasia, with Chernabog, that is all about how afraid I was. I couldn’t even sign my name, my hand shook so much.”

“That’s much better,” Sharon said.

Walt shrugged. “I did it anyway. And that feature built the studio. And the studio and all the features and the mouse, they all built Disneyland. This happy place ‘dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America. With the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.’”

It always made her laugh, hearing him quote his park dedication speech.

“Think about it this way,” Walt said. “Will it make you happy?”

Sharon closed her eyes. “Very much.”

“Happy enough to wish for it?” Walt asked.

She looked down into the well and took a deep breah. “I want to quit the job for which I spent four years in college,” she whispered, “and instead, I want to be a cast member at Disneyland.”

No coin dropped in the well, but Snow White sang “I’m Wishing” from the hidden speaker anyway.

She took her phone out of her purse. “Will you sit with me while I call them?”

He nodded and led her into Fantasyland. They sat on a bench in front of King Arthur Carrousel. Walt had been sitting on a bench much like it one day at the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round. There he’d watched his daughters, Diane and Sharon, ride the sculpted horses, and he had an idea. An idea about a park where adults and children could have fun together. It was the spark that became Disneyland.

Sharon supposed this visit to this park bench, in front of this carousel, was the first spark of her dream.

She squeezed Walt’s hand as the ringing stopped and her father answered on the other end of the line.

“Hi, Dad,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Are you having a good time today?” Sharon asked the family of four standing next to the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor counter.

“Yes!” the older child said. “We rode Star Tours, and Darth Vader was in the hangar bay, and he tried to use the Force to keep our ship from leaving, but Artoo blasted him with the ship’s cannons – pew pew pew pew — and he deflected them with his lightsaber! Tssss! Tsss! Tsss!”

“And I saw the Yeti on the Matterhorn!” the younger child said.

Sharon feigned shock. “You saw the Yeti? Were you scared?”

“No!” the two children replied in unison.

“My husband and I enjoy the rides that are a bit calmer,” the mother said, blushing a little. “The railroad is our favorite.”

“Good choice,” Sharon said. “That’s also the favorite of a very good friend of mine.”

Andrea came up beside Sharon on the cast member side of the counter, sliding the family’s sundaes towards them. “Here you are,” Sharon said, handing them each a spoon. She watched the family walk away, and when they stepped out onto Main Street, she noticed a familiar man in a dapper suit standing on the sidewalk.

“I’m going to take my break,” Sharon told Andrea. It was nearly dark outside. A few people had already camped out places to watch the parade and the fireworks.

“Now that I’m a cast member, do I call you Mr. Disney?” Sharon asked.

“Call me Walt,” he said. He strolled down Main Street, towards the flagpole, and she walked beside him. “So here you are.”

“Here I am. Quit my job at the lab. And now I make Firehouse Dalmatian Mint Sundaes.”

“They got over the initial shock of that first call,” she said. “You were right. In the end—”

“What’s that?” Walt interrupted. “I’m an old man, my hearing’s not so good.” He looked like he could barely restrain his grin, the rascal.

“I said, ‘You were right.’ My folks just wanted me to do what makes me happy.”

They’d arrived at the corner of the sidewalk where the street turned into a circle surrounding the flagpole. Park guests walked in and out of the open double doors to the Emporium gift shop.

“Good,” Walt said with a nod. “Life’s too short not to do what makes you happy. You’ll do all right, Sharon.”

And she knew. Maybe it was something in his voice. She’d come to recognize the tone he used when he was done speaking on a subject. Or did he sound a little sad, maybe? Whatever the tell had been, Sharon knew this would be the last time she’d see Walt. He just didn’t need to hang out with her anymore. He’d recruited her to work at his magic kingdom. Mission accomplished. Walt Disney was on to his next project.

And somehow, she was OK with that. Maybe later the pixie dust would wear off, and she’d grieve the loss of her friend who died almost thirty years before she’d been born. But for now, she savored the gift she’d been given without sadness or regret.

She looked at the window above the fire station, the window to his old apartment. The lamp was turned on, of course.

“You’d better be on your best behavior,” he said, taking notice of her gaze. “I’ll be here, you know. Keeping an eye on things. Anytime that lamp is on, I’m around here somewhere.”

“It’s always on,” Sharon said.

Walt smiled at her.

Two parents and a boy in a Spider-Man t-shirt stopped short before entering the Emporium. “Can I help you?” asked Gilbert, the cast member greeting guests as they arrived at the store.

The boy looked up at her and smiled. When his eyes drifted to Walt, they widened… and widened… “You look a lot like…?”

Walt winked at him.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Sharon asked the boy as she led him and his parents back down Main Street towards her ice cream parlor. “Very few people know this. This is true insider Disneyland secret stuff. I probably shouldn’t even be telling you, but I will. Just don’t tell Donald I told you, or he’ll quack my head off. Are you ready?”

The boy nodded vigorously.

“When you sit down in your car on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, before you start crashing all through Toad Hall, ask the cast member who seats you if they can make it extra wild, just for you.”

Sharon is a recent college graduate who spends her work week at the lab and her weekends at Disneyland. She didn’t think her favorite place in the world could get any more magical until the day she meets a man who sounds like Walt Disney and who looks like Walt Disney because he is Walt Disney. Sharon thinks the one thing she wants more than anything is the one thing she can never have. Can Walt teach her that at Disneyland, dreams really do come true?

“Call Me Walt” is my love letter to Disneyland and to the extraordinary man who created it. This is part one. The conclusion of the story will be published in one week, on December 5, the 116th anniversary of Walt’s birth.

The first thing Sharon bought with her first paycheck from her first real, post-college job was an annual pass to Disneyland.

Monday was work, Tuesday was work, Wednesday was work. Thursday was lots of work because the senior chemists enjoyed dumping grunt work onto a junior at 3:00 so they could be done for the week. Sharon spent Friday catching up after the Thursday pile-on, which made the day long, but mostly quiet. She picked up her Friday night feast of pho and french fries on the way home, then went out with friends. She’d only been in Irvine a short time, but she’d already made a decent-sized social circle. Being good at meeting new people and bad at being alone was a powerful combo. Saturday she took care of any chores that needed to get done, bought the groceries, and went to bed early because Sunday was Disneyland day.

She would wake up early and drive up to Anaheim. St. Justin Martyr had a 6:45 AM Mass which never lasted more than an hour. An adorable couple, Mr. and Mrs. Lester, had sort-of adopted her, and she sat with them every Sunday. They told her she felt like another daughter to them. They reminded Sharon of Carl and Ellie, with fewer balloons.

After Mass, it was a five-minute drive down Ball Road to the Mickey and Friends parking garage. Most days, she was on the first tram over to the parks. She’d pass through the gates, walk under the train trestle, and smile at the plaque above her which read, “Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” And once she got a glimpse of Sleeping Beauty Castle at the end of Main Street USA, she’d breathe a sigh of relief and say a prayer of thanks for having made it back one more time.

While she waited for rope drop, she would nosh on a latte and a croissant from the Market House Starbucks and say hello to any friends she spotted amongst the crowd. She was a semi-regular attendee of the MiceChat.com Sunday park meet-ups and had met a lot of great people at them. When the park’s loudspeakers played the announcement by Jack Wagner asking the crowd to please walk to their next destination and to enjoy their day at the Happiest Place on Earth, she obeyed. Well, she obeyed the “enjoy your day” part. The “no running”? Maybe not so much.

Come early evening, she’d buy herself a Firehouse Dalmatian Mint Sundae from Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor and sit on a bench in the park’s central hub to call her folks. On all of those Sundays, they told her how proud they were of her and her hard work. They said they told every customer about how their daughter, the brilliant scientist, was going to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry one day. On all of those Sundays, Sharon changed the subject as quickly as she politely could. But on one of those Sundays, she’d just gotten off the phone with her parents when a family of obvious tourists stepped up to the life-size bronze statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

“Wow,” a teenage girl said without emotion. “A statue of a man and a mouse.”

Sharon glared at the girl who dared to insult the Partners statue. The two young boys in the family leaned against the railing surrounding the statue and posed while their dad took a picture. It was a great photo spot, what with the statue in the foreground and Sleeping Beauty Castle further back. Sharon smiled, remembering her dad taking a similar picture of her and her mom on each of their three trips. After their photo opp, the family moved on at a brisk pace, except for the snarky girl, who didn’t look to be in a hurry to go anywhere. She stared down at her phone as she lagged behind.

“Have you ever heard of the goat trick?”

The man, seated on a bench on the other side of the statue, had spoken to the teenage girl, not to Sharon, but Sharon looked up anyway. She couldn’t see him. The statue was in the way. But there was something familiar about his voice.

“You… you’re asking me?” the teenage girl finally responded.

“There’s a goat on the top of the hill on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,” the man explained. “He’s chewing on some dynamite, so you’ll probably want to get past him as fast as you can. As you go by, turn your head around and keep watching him as your train speeds down the hill.” The man chuckled. “You’ll feel like you’re on a rocket ship from Tomorrowland instead of a runaway mine train.”

The girl blinked. “Thanks,” she said. She trotted quickly across the hub, to catch up with her family. “Hey, can we ride that train?” she said to them. “The roller coaster one?”

Sharon leaned her body slowly to the left, adjusting her line of sight so she could see the man instead of the Partners statue. Maybe it was because she was sitting near a statue of Walt Disney, but the man had sounded just like every recording she’d ever heard of…

Woah. He didn’t just sound like Walt Disney. He even looked like Walt Disney.

She must have stared longer than she intended, because the man caught her eye, smiled, and waved. “That’s a great outfit,” Sharon said. “I’ve never seen anyone DisneyBound as Walt Disney before. Original.”

The man’s salt-and-pepper mustache twitched above his grin. He chuckled and waved a hand over the gray suit he wore. “I always dress this way when I come to Disneyland. I want to look my best when I meet my guests.”

My guests? So he was a method actor. Cute. Bay Area transplant, welcome to SoCal.

“What’s your name?” Sharon asked.

“Walt.”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I get it. I mean, when you’re not DisneyBounding, what do people call you?”

“Call me Walt, Sharon.”

Had she said her name? She hadn’t said her name. How did he know her name?

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“You do now,” he said.

“I can help the next guest,” shouted a cast member over the overlapping conversations in Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor.

Sharon walked up to the available register and smiled. “Hi. I’ll have a—”

“Firehouse Dalmatian Mint Sundae?” the cast member interrupted.

Sharon blinked. “How did you know? Is this an AP thing? Is there a microchip in my pass telling you my name and what I’m going to order? No one told me that when I signed up for it.”

“No, I just recognize you,” the cast member sheepishly replied. “You always come in on Sundays, and you always order the same thing. We’ve talked a couple of times, but maybe you don’t recognize me with my glasses on. I ran out of contacts.” She pointed at her name badge. “Andrea. From Irvine. Remember?”

Even the cold of the ice cream on the other side of the counter couldn’t get the heat off Sharon’s cheeks. “Right. Andrea. I’m sorry.”

“You live in Irvine, too, right?” Andrea said. “But you’re new to the area. You recently graduated from UC… Davis, I think it was? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name, though.”

“Sharon,” she said. “And I am really embarrassed.”

She got her ice cream – Andrea put an extra cherry on top, God bless her – but just as she had last week and the week before, she headed south down Main Street, towards the flagpole, to eat it. Her anxiety in the ice cream parlor and her change of venue for her Sunday phone home were both for the same reason: the creepy DisneyBounder she’d met three weeks earlier. She wasn’t exactly sure why he’d made her feel so uncomfortable. He’d probably just overheard her name while she’d been talking to her folks. But the way he’d been so confident, it had felt like he’d been stalking her or something.

She’d nearly taken a seat on a bench adjacent to the flagpole when she saw him. The creepy DisneyBounder. Right there on the bench across from the one she’d been about to claim. Smiling. Looking right at her.

“Haven’t seen you around for a while,” he said, “but I knew you’d be back.”

She was startled, but after the initial fright, she decided she wasn’t going to let this weirdo ruin her Disneyland day. She only got one per week. “Hey, ‘Walt.’”

“Hello, Sharon,” he said. “You know, one of my daughters is named Sharon. She’s the one Lillian and I adopted.”

Sharon sighed and frowned. He still knew her name. #Stalker. “You mean one of Walt Disney’s daughters. He had two, Diane and Sharon. They’ve both passed away. So has Walt, ‘Walt.’ He died in 1966.”

“Do you know what that light is?” He pointed at the lamp in the window above the Main Street Fire Station.

Did she know what that light was? Every Disneyland fan knew what that light was. Walt Disney’s personal apartment inside the park had been above the Fire Station. The lamp in its front window was kept perpetually lit in his memory, but when he was alive, the lamp was only turned on when he was at Disneyland.

“It’s my way of letting my cast members know I’m here,” he said. His smile widened. Sharon had yet to see it disappear. “Keeps them on their best behavior.”

Sharon sat down without breaking eye contact. The corners of her mouth were turned in a slight frown as she carefully ate a spoonful of cherry and whipped cream. Fine. Part of her didn’t want to give this guy the pleasure, but she had to know. “How do you know my name?”

The man just raised an eyebrow at her. “You know the exact year I died and the names of my children, but you’re bothered because I know your name?”

Should she call security? This was starting to make her feel a little unsafe. He was really taking his method acting to a slightly macabre extreme. Disneyland had a policy against adults wearing costumes in the park, to ensure fans and the “real” characters remained distinguishable. Sharon had to admit this guy’s costume was so great, it crossed the line from DisneyBounding into unlawful costume. She could report him on those grounds alone.

But the cast members at the front gate should have told him the same thing. How did he even get in?

Was he even a person at all? Was he some kind of really great new audio-animatronic? A hologram, like in the Kingdom Keepers books? Maybe someone backstage was controlling all of this, and they knew her name because there was a microchip in her annual pass. She was RF tagged, and they were using it to play a not-so-funny form of Turtle Talk with Crush with her. It was the only explanation. The only one that wasn’t a complete creepshow, anyway.

Sharon placed her sundae on the bench, leaned forward, and pressed her index finger hard against his shoulder. She touched suit jacket and flesh underneath, not hydraulics and servo-motors. Real person. Her throat tightened a bit, but she was in a very public place. Security was just a scream away if she needed them. So fine. She could play along.

“So, Walt,” she said, “according to the urban legends, shouldn’t you be frozen in a lab somewhere?”

He laughed, and it convinced her what couldn’t possibly be true was. The laugh had been so loud and so sudden, it attracted a few glances from passersby. But that was all it attracted – glances. That meant other people could hear him. They could see him. But on a busy Sunday afternoon, with the park filled with annual pass-holding Disney geeks, not a single person complimented him on his realistic costume or asked him to pose for a picture.

“Can other people see you?” Sharon asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Everyone can see me,” Walt said. “But most of them don’t see me. People see what they want to see.”

He wasn’t an audio-animatronic, he wasn’t a DisneyBounder, and if no one else saw him for what he really looked like, then… could he possibly be…?

Oh. My. Disney.

“You’re dead,” she said.

“Prove it,” he said.

They sat there, just looking at each other, for some length of time.

“Why me?” Sharon asked. “You have grandchildren. Why not go…”

She almost said haunt.

“Why not see them?”

Walt leaned back against the bench. “I like seeing Disneyland through the eyes of the young. I always imagined it as a place where age could relive fond memories of the past, and where youth could savor–”

“The challenge and promise of the future,” Sharon finished with him. It was a line straight from the dedication speech Walt Disney had made on Disneyland’s opening day. This was so surreal…

She covered her mouth to stifle an incredulous laugh. “You’re Walt Disney. The Walt Disney. You’re supposed to be dead, but you’re not, and instead of making new movies or building new rides, you just want to hang out. With me. At Disneyland.”

Walt shrugged his shoulders. Wasn’t that what he’d just said?

Sharon blessed herself with the sign of the cross, and when that didn’t make the man in front of her disappear in a puff of brimstone, she decided she was all in, even though this was insane. Like, Jafar cackling over ex-Prince Ali level insane. This was Walter Elias Disney some fifty years after his death, in the flesh and… and he wanted to ride It’s a Small World with her.

She was either going to have the experience of a lifetime, or she was going to go insane.

She leaped to her feet. “All right. Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“Space Mountain,” Sharon said. “For years, everyone on every Disney website and chat room on the internet has debated what you would think of all the attractions added to the park since you passed away. I’m going to settle those debates forever.”

“That’s a classic,” Sharon said as they stepped out of the exit of the Haunted Mansion and back into the bustle of the walkway between New Orleans Square and Critter Country. “An absolute classic. Might be my favorite ride in the whole park. They finished it three years after you died.”

Sharon still felt kind of strange referring to Walt’s death when there he was, walking right next to her. He gazed longingly at the churro cart as they passed it. Could he just take a churro if he wanted one? It was his park, after all, even if no one else seemed to recognize him. How didn’t they? Who else wore a suit to Disneyland, except on Dapper Day? Not even the managers wore suits. Did he even need to eat?

“Hello?” Sharon said. “Come on, say something. What did you think of the Haunted Mansion?”

“Oh,” Walt said. “It will do.”

“This has been the craziest day of my life,” Sharon said. “I can’t even fathom what could be crazier than today. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a week. Which will make work tomorrow fairly interesting.”

“Apparently, I have a lot of potential. I could make Lab Tech II within two years. Might be running the whole R&D lab before I’m 35.”

“Work hard,” Walt said with a nod. “It will pay off.”

The topic had to be changed. Immediately. “I guess so. What next?”

“You’d better be getting home if you have work tomorrow.”

She blinked, shook her head. “No, I’m not ready. This has been…”

“We can meet again next Sunday,” Walt said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Seriously?”

“Unless you don’t want to.”

“I want to! For sure. I absolutely want to.” Another day like this one? Not just another day at Disneyland, but another day here with Walt Disney himself?

“I’ll have to show you Snow White’s Grotto sometime,” Walt said.

“Sure,” Sharon said. “And there’s so much more I’d like to get your thoughts on. Like, oh! Do you know there’s now a second park right across from this one, where the parking lot used to be?”

Walt looked like he thought it was cute, the way she tried to teach him about his parks. “You know, I had heard something about that.”

Sharon had once heard of a book called Tuesdays With Morrie. Her life became Sundays with Walt.

They rode Storybook Land Canal Boats, and Walt told her about his original ideas for the attraction. She watched Walt marvel at how similar the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage was to his original Submarine Voyage, and yet how different and modern, too. They surveyed the park from the top of the Tarzan Treehouse. And across the esplanade, California Adventure, on the whole, got a firm, “That’ll work” from Walt.

No one but her ever noticed who he was. When they passed a mirror, Sharon saw Walt Disney’s reflection in it. When they boarded a ride, and he told the ride operator, “Two,” the cast members heard him, and responded to him. But Sharon realized they must not see him or else they’d have been as floored as she’d been the first time.

People see what they want to see.

“Why do you like Disneyland so much?” Walt asked her one Sunday evening as they rode Mickey’s Fun Wheel high above the Paradise Pier section of California Adventure park. When their gondola reached the ride’s highest point, they could see all of DCA and most of Disneyland. She loved bringing Walt up here and watching him survey his kingdom.

“Magic is real here,” she said. “It’s the only place in the world where storybook heroes come to life.”

“And dead animators?”

Sharon grinned. “That, too. It’s not the world as it is out there, but as it could be. Happier. Kinder. Better.”

“Interesting,” he said, almost under his breath. “How old were you when you first visited?”

“What, are you like one of the cast members out in Downtown Disney with an iPad, taking a survey about how many food service establishments I visited today?”

“I told you, I like to see Disneyland through the eyes of the young. Gives me a new perspective.”

“The first time I visited I was seven-years-old. My folks and I came again when I was twelve, and then again when I was seventeen, the summer before I started my senior year of high school. Each trip down was a three-day weekend, which after drive time gave us two days in the parks. I spent the whole drive down talking my parents’ ears off about what I was going to ride and which characters I was going to meet. And when we got to the Anaheim city limits, I just stared out the window. I didn’t even blink for fear of missing that first glance of the majestic snow-covered peaks of Matterhorn mountain. We had so much fun. We had to pack our own lunch and dinner from home, but on the way out every night, my dad bought me a Firehouse Dalmatian Mint Sundae.”

She looked out over Disneyland and chewed on a fingernail. Should she tell him? “Actually, he always bought one for me to try and cheer me up. I left Disneyland in tears every time our trip was over.”

Walt looked taken aback. “Why?”

“You have to understand. My family was poor. My folks worked so hard, they still do, and it wasn’t until later in life that I realized just how much they sacrificed to make those three trips. So every time we’d leave…” She paused until the lump in her throat went away. She took a deep breath. “I never knew when I’d ever come back. Or if I’d ever come back.”

“What do your folks do?” Walt asked quietly.

“They run a store,” Sharon said. “Convenience store with a gas station. Three now. My mom and dad were immigrants. Came here with nothing, and…”

“And now you’re a college graduate,” Walt said.

“First in my family.”

“And you have a great job. So much potential for promotion. Your parents must be proud. Only in America. Isn’t it wonderful?”

When the ride ended, they strolled around Paradise Pier, back towards the park entrance, mostly in silence. Talk of those childhood trips, of how hard her folks worked, and especially about her university achievements had soured Sharon’s mood. Walt broke the silence when they reached Buena Vista Street near the front of the park. “Getting late. You headed home?”

“Gotta work tomorrow,” Sharon mumbled with a shrug. “That great American promotion isn’t going to happen all by itself, is it?”

Walt stopped walking and leaned against a planter. “Why don’t you like your job?”

“It’s a good job,” Sharon said.

He gave her a dismissive wave. “I know it’s a good job. But I’m the one who calls it that. You don’t. You don’t like it, and I don’t get that. Don’t you like chemistry?”

“I own a t-shirt with the periodic table of elements on it,” Sharon said. “I love chemistry. It got me first place in the Emeryville All-City High School Science Fair. Twice.”

“But you don’t like your job.” He pointed towards the Storytellers statue – the statue of himself as a young man, with Mickey standing on his luggage. “You came all the way from Emeryville for it. Came to Orange County just like I did, with a suitcase and a dream.”

Sharon looked at her shoes. Her shoulders were tense. There was something she wanted to confess, something she’d never before told anyone, but it was… rebellious to even think it. It would be ungrateful and insulting to say it out loud.

“It, umm,” she said.

Walt watched her. Patiently. Gave her all the time she needed.

“It was not my dream to be a chemist,” she finally admitted.

Walt just nodded as if she’d said Mickey was a mouse. “What is your dream, Sharon?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters.”

The Red Car Trolley made its way through Buena Vista Street. Some children asked their parents if it was time for a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar. A young man assured his date she wouldn’t be too terrified on Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout, and that if she were, he’d hold her hand.

When it became obvious she wasn’t going to answer, Walt said, “I don’t think we’ll make it over to Snow White’s Grotto today.”

“I totally forgot,” Sharon said. “I have time to visit it before I go if you want to park hop over?”

“Maybe next time.”

“But you mention it every time we’re here, and we’ve never gone yet.”

“You’re not ready.”

Umm… huh? “I’m not ready? To go see some statues of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?”

“Snow White’s Grotto has a wishing well,” Walt said. “I can’t take you to the wishing well until you’re ready to make your wish.”

“Make a wish?” Sharon stuttered.

“You know so much about Disneyland,” he said, “but I made movies before I ever made this. Go home and read about what it took to make Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. We’ll talk again next Sunday.”

He put his hands in his pockets and strolled away towards the Elias and Co. gift shop as if he had a few souvenirs to buy before he left the park for the day. Sharon had become so used to spending time with him, it was easy to forget every minute with him was some kind of magic. But now he was talking about making wishes?

What the Tinkerbell was that supposed to mean?

Come back next week for the conclusion. If you enjoyed part one, please consider buying me a coffee.

Filed under: Disneyland, Fiction, Story]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/28/call-me-walt-part-1/feed/1mripplingerWalt_disney_portraitBuy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.comSome thoughts on the financial well-being of STAR Labs employeeshttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/21/some-thoughts-on-the-financial-well-being-of-star-labs-employees/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/21/some-thoughts-on-the-financial-well-being-of-star-labs-employees/#respondTue, 21 Nov 2017 14:00:28 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=4036Continue reading Some thoughts on the financial well-being of STAR Labs employees]]>I don’t ask for a lot of believability in stories. I don’t mind that the Death Star makes a loud BOOM when it explodes in the middle of soundless outer space. I prefer violence in TV and film to be bloodless, even when really sharp blades are involved. Show me a hero standing in the middle of a hailstorm of bullets and not receiving so much as a scratch and I won’t have a problem with it. But there’s one aspect of my favorite currently running TV show, The Flash, that tests my willingness to suspend disbelief every time I think of it.

How in the multiverse are Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow paying their bills?

The Flash himself, Barry Allen, collects a paycheck from the Central City Police Department, where he works as a CSI. Iris West is a reporter. Detective Joe West, like Barry, is on the police payroll. They’re all financially secure.

But Cisco and Caitlin worked at STAR Labs for Dr. Harrison Wells at the time the lab’s particle accelerator exploded. It was established in numerous season one episodes that while Wells secretly planned this “disaster,” most of the world considered it a terrible accident. The incident left STAR Labs and Dr. Wells disgraced. Things were so bad, the STAR Labs building was never fully repaired, and it was declared a hazardous site. Four years later, it still features a visibly damaged exterior.

The financial fallout of the particle accelerator explosion – read: negligence lawsuits – should have sent STAR Labs into Chapter 11. If I remember correctly, the pilot episode said the company was headed towards bankruptcy. But on a more human level, Cisco and Caitlin refused to abandon Dr. Wells after the accident. They continued to work at STAR Labs, and they were part of the team that helped Barry discover and hone his speedster abilities. While this is a heartwarming display of loyalty, they still need to eat. How was STAR Labs bringing in enough money to pay their (not insignificant) mechanical and biological engineer salaries?

Idea 1:Dr. Wells was secretly Eobard “Reverse Flash” Thawne, a super-villain from the future. Knowing exactly what kind of legal and financial trouble STAR Labs would find itself in post-explosion, he put lots of money away in legally sheltered funds. This allowed him to pay for electricity and pay the salaries of Cisco and Caitlin.

That could work, but at the end of season one, Wells was defeated, and he bequeathed STAR Labs to Barry Allen. How does the money keep coming in, post-Wells?

Idea 2:Dr. Wells also left Barry all of his money, so after Wells’s death, business went on uninterrupted.

My problem with this idea is that I doubt Barry’s moral compass would allow him to keep and spend Wells’s probably illegally obtained cash. He’d take STAR Labs because it was the place from which he and his friends defend Central City. But he’d want a way to keep it financially viable independent of Wells’s shady funds.

Could be. But, while I don’t watch Arrow, my understanding is Ollie has lost most of his money. Isn’t Felicity Smoak also rich though, too? A big strike against this idea is that in season three when Barry offers the use of a STAR Labs hangar (that looked a lot like the Hall of Justice) to his team, Team Arrow, the Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, he says he owns the facility. If Ollie or Felicity was bankrolling STAR Labs, wouldn’t they now own it? Considering they were both present when Barry said he owned it, wouldn’t they have corrected him?

Besides, STAR Labs being bankrolled by someone from Team Arrow seems to me like something too big to not mention. Then again, I may be the only person crazy enough to be bothered by this. (Or not!)

Idea 5:Cisco and Caitlin live off income from some sweet patents they own.

They’re both geniuses. They’ve both invented new tech to help Barry defeat a criminal metahuman multiple times. And I’m confident they’re smart enough to monetize those inventions. But if this is the case, then in early season two, when Barry temporarily shut down Team Flash, why did Caitlin go work for Mercury Labs? Was it just because she loves her job that much? Or did she have bills to pay? And of course, while this would explain how Cisco and Caitlin get their money, it wouldn’t explain how STAR Labs, as a company, continues to pay its property taxes and water bill.

Personally, I think the answer is a little bit of all of these ideas.

I think Cisco and Caitlin both own some patents and that they collect a little money from them, but not enough to live on.

I think Dr. Wells continued to pay them, even after the particle accelerator explosion, and I think after taking ownership of STAR Labs, Barry continues to pay them.

I think their salaries must include an extra stipend towards buying their own personal health insurance, because what group health provider is going to offer a plan to a company with only two employees, whose corporate office is a “class four hazardous location”?

I think Dr. Wells, a speedster who has mastered time travel far more than Barry ever has (and who paid the price for it), obtained his wealth by putting money in a savings account in the past and living off the beaucoup interest.

I think when Barry came into possession of this wealth, he was OK with spending it since the only laws Wells broke in obtaining it were the laws of physics.

And I think Barry gives Cisco and Caitlin matching 401(k), continuous education via a generous training stipend, and an extravagant Christmas bonus every year because he’s Barry Allen, the fastest, and nicest, man alive.

That’s my headcanon, and I’m sticking to it. Now don’t even get me started about how CatCo must have an unlimited PTO policy because if they didn’t, Kara Danvers would have been fired halfway through Supergirl season one due to all of her sudden absences from work.

Filed under: Superheroes]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/21/some-thoughts-on-the-financial-well-being-of-star-labs-employees/feed/0mripplingerCaitlinAndCiscoTomorrow’s Shepherd Cover Revealhttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/15/tomorrows-shepherd-cover-reveal/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/15/tomorrows-shepherd-cover-reveal/#respondWed, 15 Nov 2017 14:00:20 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3961Continue reading Tomorrow’s Shepherd Cover Reveal]]>I’m very pleased to reveal to the world the cover of my next book, Tomorrow’s Shepherd, the second book of The Verdant Revival.

Tomorrow’s Shepherd shifts the focus of The Verdant Revival from sword-wielding blacksmith Siv McCaig to his best friend, socially awkward, mechanical genius Fritz Reinhardt. With the alien white demons defeated, Fritz embarks on a worldwide effort to restore the planet’s chipware. He’s the only person who can repair planet Verde’s ancient technology, lost two centuries prior. The promises of instantaneous communication, vastly improved medicine and hygiene, and labor-saving tools fill most people with ecstatic hope for an easier life. But a powerful minority remembers technology’s faults: loss of privacy, deadly high-tech weapons, and devastating environmental impact.

These critics find a powerful ally in Lady Verde, the living spirit of the planet, who demands an end to the technological restoration. How can Fritz build a better future when the planet itself is fighting against him? How will Fritz and his friends defend the people when their planet turns deadly? And what secret is Lady Verde hiding?

Fritz is featured on the cover clad in a high-tech chipware suit. And what is that massive robot he’s just tackled? Back in August, I dropped the hint that Tomorrow’s Shepherd features two villains, and both were mentioned by name in Yesterday’s Demons. The first is Lady Verde. The second is the Steelterrors, a group of giant, sentient robots who nearly destroyed the ancient world a thousand years ago. The Steelterror on the cover doesn’t look too happy to be taken down by a lowly “blood bag,” does it? Fritz is in for quite the fight.

Here’s the entire picture you’ll see on the front and back covers of the paperback edition. Click on it to view it full size.

The illustrator of this cover is Tommaso Renieri, a gifted artist and a true professional. I’m blessed to have found him, and it was a pleasure to work with him on this piece.

Tomorrow’s Shepherd will be available in ebook and paperback in 2018. I’m currently hard at work finishing it. Check back soon for more updates. I can’t wait to tell you this story!

Filed under: The Verdant Revival, Tomorrow's Shepherd]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/15/tomorrows-shepherd-cover-reveal/feed/0mripplingereBook CoverTomorrow's Shepherd Cover - FullTomorrow’s Shepherd cover reveal coming soonhttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/07/tomorrows-shepherd-cover-reveal-coming-soon/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/07/tomorrows-shepherd-cover-reveal-coming-soon/#commentsTue, 07 Nov 2017 15:00:31 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3944Continue reading Tomorrow’s Shepherd cover reveal coming soon]]>I have some exciting news today! Next week, I’ll be revealing the cover of my next book, Tomorrow’s Shepherd, book two of The Verdant Revival. That reveal will happen right here, on this blog, but a sneak peek will first go out to everyone who subscribes to my newsletter.

I send my newsletter a handful of times a year, anytime I have something I’m especially happy to report. If you’re not already a newsletter subscriber, please become one.

Filed under: The Verdant Revival, Tomorrow's Shepherd]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/11/07/tomorrows-shepherd-cover-reveal-coming-soon/feed/1mripplingerTS Tiny Cover TeaserCome see me at a Local Author Fairhttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/10/11/come-see-me-at-a-local-author-fair/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/10/11/come-see-me-at-a-local-author-fair/#respondWed, 11 Oct 2017 13:00:57 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3919Continue reading Come see me at a Local Author Fair]]>I’m happy to announce I’ve been invited to participate in the Schertz Public Library’s Fall Local Author Fair on Saturday, October 21, 2017. The event will take place from 1 to 3 PM. Eleven authors from the Schertz-Cibolo area will spend the first hour talking about ourselves and our work, and the second hour will be a meet-and-greet.

If you’re in the area, stop on by! I’ll have paperback copies of Yesterday’s Demons available for sale. I’ll have some giveaway swag, too. Yay, free stuff!

Filed under: Book Signings]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/10/11/come-see-me-at-a-local-author-fair/feed/0mripplingerAuthorFairOn having an introverted child who needs to be alone. Often.https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/08/08/on-having-an-introverted-child-who-needs-to-be-alone-often/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/08/08/on-having-an-introverted-child-who-needs-to-be-alone-often/#commentsTue, 08 Aug 2017 13:00:15 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3765Continue reading On having an introverted child who needs to be alone. Often.]]>Photo from Pixabay,licensed under CC0 1.0

Unless you’re the Energizer Bunny, you eventually will get tired. Everyone needs to rest and recharge themselves. But how we recharge is a huge distinguisher between extroverts and introverts. To some psychologists, it is the trait that most distinguishes between the two.

Extroverts are mentally energized by being among people, lots of external stimuli, and exciting situations. On the other hand, an introvert may enjoy those same activities, but she will find them mentally draining. She’ll need to recover from them with rest, where rest is defined as down time, alone time, quiet time, or all-of-the-above time.

An introverted child will need plenty of down time in which to rest and regain energy lost during socialization. And an Introvert Parent will most likely have no problem making sure the child gets the time she needs. But beware! There’s a tendency within you, my fellow Introvert Parent, that I believe is not in your child’s long-term best interests. You need to be on guard against it.

An opportunity we wish we’d hadOne of my daughters likes to be alone. A lot. If unexpected guests arrive at the house, she runs and hides in her room. When expected guests arrive, she… well, she’s likely to hide in her room then, too. And I understand how she feels because when I was growing up, I felt the same way. I suppose many Introvert Parents did.

Susan Cain’s Quiet started a cultural conversation about introversion and extroversion. One of her theories is that we live in what she calls the “Extrovert Ideal,” “the omnipresent belief that the ideal self is gregarious, alpha, and comfortable in the spotlight.” But before Quiet, many of us introverts felt misunderstood, or worse, felt our preferences were ignored or belittled.

Knowing what we know now, we Introvert Parents can do better for our own children. So your son likes to be alone? Great. Let him be alone! Be respectful of his needs. Let him whittle away his leisure hours reading in his bedroom, or building with Lego, or whatever it is he likes to do.

But no one stays home forever. Outings, errands, even — gasp! — parties are not just facts of life, they’re good things. (Yes, even parties can be good.) And there are a few tips I’ve learned to follow to give my introverted children the greatest chance of having fun and enjoying themselves in such occasions.

Set expectations. Don’t make the outing a surprise. Let your child know ahead of time that it is going to happen. An introverted child will have a lot of questions. Who will be there? How long will we be gone? What will we do once we get there? The more of these questions you can answer ahead of time, the greater the likelihood the introvert child will enjoy himself.

Arrive early. Walking into an empty room is far, far easier for an introverted child than walking into a crowd. It will give the child time to get used to his new surroundings and environment without having to get used to the crowd of people around him at the same time.

Not every outing is a chore. Sometimes, the outing should be to something he really enjoys, like an art class, or a superhero party. If the only parties he ever attends are crowded, noisy, and the opposite of everything he likes, then, of course, he’s going to sour on all parties. Show him what a fun outing can be.

Let him take a breather. Just a few minutes in solitude, or silence, or both can be re-energizing. If he seems to be getting drained in the middle of the event, take a break from it. If it’s a sporting event, go visit the souvenir stand or concession stand, but do it during a time when most folks are in their seats. If it is a party at a friend’s house, take a walk around the block, or spend some time at a nearby playground. Relieve the pressure for a while, and he might be energized enough to make it through the rest of the event without a meltdown.

“Let her take a break” is good advice for time spent at home, too. A day the family spends doing some kind of activity together is likely exciting and fun for an introverted child, especially if she has a quiet, safe space to retreat to for a while if needed.

The hidden danger
As an Introvert Parent, you are thoroughly equipped and qualified to take care of your introvert child’s need for alone time. But you can also be your own worst enemy, especially if you grew up wishing you could have more time alone, or wishing your relatives understood you loved them, but needed to control the amount of time you spend with them. You’re a parent, so of course, you want to give your children a better life than what you had. But in this case, your tendency may be to coddle your children.

Though I have tried very hard to make sure my daughter gets all the alone time she needs, there are many situations in which I’ve had to draw a firm line between being supportive and being pampering:

She doesn’t always get to “just stay home.” She has to do some things she thinks she doesn’t like. Am I trying to force her into the Extrovert Ideal? Not at all! I’m trying to prepare her for life. She probably won’t want to go to class in college, either. She probably won’t want to go to work. I don’t want to push her into the rat race too young, but nor do I want it to be a shock to her once she’s in it.

She doesn’t have to be a social butterfly, yukking it up with everyone at the party. But she does have to be polite. She has to greet people. She has to say please and thank you. She doesn’t have to offer small talk, but she has to listen politely to it. Whether you’re introverted or extroverted, being rude is not OK. Wheaton’s Law applies to all.

Sometimes I’m flexible on when she does her chores, but there are still deadlines, and sometimes, I just need the table set now. I give her a lot of leeway in making her own personal schedule, but when I need to step in and request her immediate attention, I need her to respectfully comply.

Having an introverted child is a dream come true for you, my fellow Introvert Parent, because such a child will share so many of your preferences in how to spend free time. Just be conscious of what you permit and the example you set; you don’t want your child to become the meme stereotype of introversion. He needs your help to stay more “I like quiet” and less “I hate all people except the Amazon delivery guy.” Help him to explore our loud, busy, wonderful world, not hide from it. Then, after the socializing is done, show him the truly spectacular things that can happen when you combine snacks, a sofa, and Netflix.

I finished the second draft of Tomorrow’s Shepherd, and it is currently in the hands of the first of my beta readers! I’ve been working on this book for twenty months now, and it’s not done yet, but nevertheless, I’m happy to reach this milestone.

I’ve previously given out a few teases about the book. I’ve mentioned that each of the three books of The Verdant Revival will have a different theological virtue as its theme. Yesterday’s Demons was about love. Tomorrow’s Shepherd is about hope.

I’ve mentioned that each of The Verdant Revival‘s main characters takes a turn as the star of a book. Siv was the focus of Yesterday’s Demons. Tomorrow’s Shepherd is Fritz’s story. And I mentioned that “gravity” was not only the 100,000th word I wrote for the book, but it’s also another theme of the book, so much so that “Defying Gravity” from Wicked is perfect for the book’s soundtrack.

To celebrate the completion of the second draft, here’s a new hint about the book’s plot. Tomorrow’s Shepherd features not one, but two villains… and both were mentioned by name in Yesterday’s Demons.

As is my practice, I now plan to put the book on the shelf while my beta readers absorb it. During this break, I plan to catch up on some articles I’ve meant to post here. I also have another project in mind I’ll be starting very soon. It will be a different experience for me, but I’m very excited about it. And since I don’t want to sound entirely coy and elusive, I’ll say this much about it: it’s a non-fiction project.

As always, I want to thank everyone for reading this for your support. I can’t say you’re the reason I write, because I have to write, and I’d do it even if no one read my work. But the fact you do read it, and enjoy it, and tell me about your enjoyment of it means so much. Thank you for your continued support.

Deus vobiscum.

Filed under: Status Update, The Verdant Revival, Tomorrow's Shepherd]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/08/01/august-2017-status-update/feed/2mripplinger2017-08 Status UpdateA cult of qualityhttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/23/a-cult-of-quality/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/23/a-cult-of-quality/#respondTue, 23 May 2017 13:00:29 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3716Continue reading A cult of quality]]>One of my favorite books about software engineering is Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, and one of my favorite parts of that book is the introduction of the phrase “cult of quality.” DeMarco and Lister define this as a team that has decided “only perfect is good enough for us.” While most of the world won’t argue for higher quality, members of a cult of quality will “always turn out something that’s better than what their market is asking for.”

Check it out and let me know what you think. If you’re a software engineer, do you work in a cult of quality? If not, how can you make your environment into one? And if you’re not in software engineering, how can you live a cult of quality in whatever it is you do?

Filed under: Software Engineering]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/23/a-cult-of-quality/feed/0mripplingerShould I capitalize Heaven? And if I don’t, do I go to hell?https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/16/should-i-capitalize-heaven-and-if-i-dont-do-i-go-to-hell/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/16/should-i-capitalize-heaven-and-if-i-dont-do-i-go-to-hell/#commentsTue, 16 May 2017 13:00:32 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3467Continue reading Should I capitalize Heaven? And if I don’t, do I go to hell?]]>I’m a traditionalist. I still have a landline. I kiss my bride at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day (when I’m awake for it). Our national pastime isn’t this newfangled foosball nonsense, it’s baseball — and day baseball at that. I lean traditional when it comes to grammar, too. I write text messages using proper spelling and punctuation. When someone tells me they’re doing good, I think, “Superman does good. You’re doing well.” (But I don’t say it out loud because I don’t want to be that guy.)

But I’ve read a lot of Grammar Girl, and I’ve come to see that much of what I’ve always thought of as grammar rules are actually styles. My traditionalist mindset says that rules are absolute, but style? Style is very personal. I must obey the speed limit, but don’t you dare tell me what I should wear. My clothes are an expression of me, man. This has led me to be much more accepting of new grammar styles than I once was. I’m cool with leaving the periods out of an abbreviation. I’ve accepted that, in typed text, it’s OK to put a single space between sentences instead of two. Singular “they”? It hasn’t always been my thing, but I’m open to giving it a try.

It’s from this perspective of English as a living language, and not something that stopped evolving with the death of Noah Webster, that I want to talk about heaven and hell. Or is it Heaven and Hell? Turns out that while organized religion might be considered one of the most traditionalist things around today, the grammar style used by many sects of Christianity is actually pretty modern.

His pronouns are simply divine
God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all capitalized because they’re proper names. I think pretty much everyone agrees on that. And despite the fact that the entirety of my education was in secular public schools, I was always taught the traditional style that pronouns referring to God are to be capitalized. My children’s Catholic homeschool English textbooks still teach this style. But I’ve noticed that this is no longer universally observed, even in some fairly pious places… like the Bible itself!

Here’s Matthew 2:2 from the New American Bible, the translation of the Bible used in the Catholic Mass readings in the United States: “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” Under traditional style, “king,” “his,” and “him” all should have been capitalized in that sentence, but they’re not. And this isn’t just a Catholic thing. A Bible translation comparison tool shows most Bible translations do not capitalize divine pronouns.

While the “capitalize all divine pronouns” style was no doubt implemented as a way of demonstrating respect for God, I assume readability concerns are what prompted the move away from it. Unorthodox capitalization is jarring. Authors and Bible editors probably decided (wisely) that they shouldn’t do anything to distract their readers from a religious text, especially scripture.

Are we trying to reach Heaven or heaven?What about Heaven and Hell? They are the proper names of places, and therefore should be capitalized. Right? (Even a non-believer should agree with this, as the names of fictional places like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are capitalized.) I understood the move away from capitalized divine pronouns, but I was a little surprised to find that even amongst religious authors and editors, the common modern style is not to capitalize heaven and hell either.

Matthew 5:20 (NAB) reads, “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Catechism of the Catholic Church 1024 reads, “This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity — this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed — is called ‘heaven.'” And on the subject of the bad place, Catechism of the Catholic Church 1033 reads, “This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell.'”

Why not capitalize heaven and hell? I note those Catechism definitions don’t call them places, instead labeling them a “perfect life” and a “state.” So are they not to be considered places, and therefore proper name capitalization rules do not apply to them? That’s a theological question outside the scope of this discussion. But it is worth noting that the New American Bible does capitalize one synonym for hell: Gehenna, as in Mark 9:43: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.”

The NAB footnotes indicate Gehenna comes from “Hebrew gê-hinnōm, ‘Valley of Hinnom,’ or gê ben-hinnōm, ‘Valley of the son of Hinnom,’ southwest of Jerusalem, the center of an idolatrous cult during the monarchy in which children were offered in sacrifice.” It’s the proper name of a place and therefore capitalized. As for Bibles other than the NAB, a BibleStudyTools.com comparison shows translations that use “Gehenna” or a different transliteration of the Hebrew word do capitalize it, though most versions of Mark 9:43 simply use “hell,” uncapitalized.

It seems the majority of religious sources say heaven and hell should not be capitalized. What about secular sources? Well, when I used Grammarly to look over this article, it flagged at least one use of uncapitalized heaven as a possible error. And Alanis Morissette said, “Isn’t it ironic?”

Do you reject Satan? And all his empty promises? And do you refuse to capitalize the name of the place where he lives?The style an author uses says a lot about them, or at least about the tone they intend with that particular work. And that brings me to an observation I’ve made over and over — the observation that prompted me to write this article. I see it frequently. Here’s an example from the way the Act of Contrition is posted in my parish’s confessional:

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of hell.

Did you notice the capitalized “Heaven” and uncapitalized “hell”? Aww yeah, this is the style I call “sticking it to the devil by withholding a capital.” The person who uses this style — and I’ll admit, at times in the past, that person has been me — is saying, “Heaven is worthy of capitalization, but hell is not.” Take that, Satan!

For my personal style on this matter, I’ve decided to take my lead from my church. Heaven and hell are not capitalized unless they’re at the beginning of a sentence. And God knows I love him even if I don’t capitalize pronouns that refer to him. But nor am I here to judge. If a fellow believer wants to capitalize divine pronouns or write of “Heaven” and “hell,” so be it. As Grammar Girl says in her TED talk, we are the ones who vote on new words and new styles, and we do it by using some and ignoring others.

But if you don’t use the Oxford comma, you are going to hell.

Filed under: Grammar, Writing]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/16/should-i-capitalize-heaven-and-if-i-dont-do-i-go-to-hell/feed/2mripplingerbible-1960635_640Grammarly-HeavenCoping with noisy children as an introvert parenthttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/09/coping-with-noisy-children-as-an-introvert-parent/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/09/coping-with-noisy-children-as-an-introvert-parent/#respondTue, 09 May 2017 13:00:47 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3300Continue reading Coping with noisy children as an introvert parent]]>If I were to give this article a clickbait headline, it would be, “An introvert parent controlled his six children’s noise levels with one simple rule.”
Credit: Skeeze via Pixabay. Licensed under CC0 1.0.

The family meal is as American as apple pie, which incidentally is exactly what we hope to receive at the end of one. It’s a time to be together and to eat together, but not in silence. The true beauty of the family meal is the opportunity it gives us to communicate with one another. Father Leo Patalinghug’s Grace Before Meals movement is built on the idea that “the simple act of creating and sharing a meal can strengthen all kinds of relationships.”

But when you’re the father of six children, all of them nine-years-old or younger, you don’t get a lot of communication during dinner. You get a lot of crosstalk and noise. The volume of the voices sometimes is the problem, but usually not. The problem is usually quantity. Dearest Sons 1 and 2 are talking about Pokemon, complete with sound effects. Dearest Daughter 2 is singing at the top of her lungs (and not eating). Dearest Son 3 is bellowing loudly about how his food is yucky, which makes Dearest Wife, who worked very hard to make the meal, more and more frustrated. Dearest Daughter 3 is climbing down from her seat to sit in her mother’s lap. And Dearest Daughter 1, like me, just wants to run away from the table and escape to somewhere quiet, like solitary confinement in a federal penitentiary. With young children, a regular family meal can be a raucous dinner party every night.

Some families thrive on this. If you need an example, go watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding. But what about a highly introverted person, like me? In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain discusses the research of developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan into “high-reactive” types, people whose brains easily overload on dopamine and thus find themselves easily overstimulated. Dr. Elaine Aron has conducted extensive research into what she calls “highly-sensitive persons” (which I also am), people who are easily overwhelmed by bright lights or loud sounds. In her book The Introvert Advantage, Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D., describes a similar situation and reaction: “Peter, an introvert, is going to a museum, looking forward to seeing his favorite Monet. As he enters the museum, which is not crowded, he feels overwhelmed; he reduces his focus immediately, perhaps without even realizing it.”

It isn’t just that we’d prefer a quiet meal in which the only sounds are the clinking of silverware and some soft Vivaldi music. It’s that when we encounter a situation in which numerous voices are talking over one another, our brains overload on all the stimulation, and we shut down, like a circuit breaker disrupting an overpowered electrical line. Self-imposed isolation from your own family isn’t something any of us wants, no matter what the internet cliche of the “Just leave me alone, everyone!” introvert might make some people think. So what’s an introvert parent to do?

Rule #3
My wife Rose and I have many rules for our children, but they’re all pretty standard stuff, like don’t hit your siblings, be excellent to one another, and don’t stick forks up your nose. We also have three special rules, each one important enough to be numbered. Rule #1 is “obey us the first time.” We’re not tyrants, we just want to teach our kids a proper sense of obedience and trust towards their parents. Rule #2 is “let Mommy get her sleep,” and you can read more about that one when my wife starts writing articles about being an “I Really Need My Sleep” Parent.

Rule #3 is “one person speaks at a time.” It’s pretty self-explanatory. It means when we’re all gathered together, everyone takes turns speaking. We don’t talk over one another. We don’t hold multiple conversations simultaneously. We listen, and we don’t just wait to talk.

And it works. It works so well. The two main benefits are:

Quiet at the dinner table. Not silence, but quiet. Although we are eight, only one of us is speaking at any one time. The noise level goes from “wild, crowded party” to “pleasant conversation with the closest of friends.” Bliss!

Perhaps a less obvious benefit: it slows the paceof the conversation. This is essential to my introvert-wired brain with its “long, slow acetylcholine pathway” as Laney puts it. I can keep track of one conversation. I get tired, frustrated, and eventually angry when I have to track three at the same time.

Knowing the rule and living it are two separate things
Rule #3 works so well and so wonderfully, you’d think there was nothing wrong with it. But there is. It has a single drawback, and it’s a huge one: the children don’t obey it. At least not all the time. But honestly, I’d be a little worried if they did constantly follow it. They’re all under ten-years-old, after all. They’re supposed to be wild little gremlins.

Since it’s against the nature of young children and toddlers to carry out a civil one-person-speaks-at-a-time conversation, there are a few techniques I’ve learned for helping them to follow Rule #3. First, it’s a big help if you or your spouse can “hold court” at the table. It will go against every fiber of your introvert self, but you have to make yourself the focus of attention. You’re going to have to be the moderator.

If you work a day job, apply some of your corporate experience here. We’ve all attended meetings that aren’t truly exchanges of ideas, but are instead ceremonies, right? Usually, the ceremony involves the meeting organizer going around the table, calling on participants one at a time to give their reports. This is one of the worst uses of your time in corporate America, it is an abuse of a meeting, it is an email or instant message or 1-on-1 conversation forced into the context of a team meeting merely for the convenience of a supervisor. But in the context of a parent controlling the conversation to keep it from erupting into noisy chaos, it’s perfect! Give each child a chance to say something about his or her day, or to tell a story or a joke, whatever works best. In our family, I often ask, “Who has a kindness to report?” and we swap stories of kind acts we did for others that day or kind acts others did for us.

While Rule #3 was born as a way to make me want to not run and hide every time the dinner bell rang, it doesn’t have to apply solely to meal times. It works any other time you and your family are together and the conversation is at risk of becoming a free-for-all. This might be in the car, or even just while sitting around the living room together on a lazy Sunday.

It also bears mentioning that there are ways to apply Rule #3 in a way that can steer the family activity away from conversation completely. What if the one person speaking is reading a book to the family? What if the one “person” speaking is the television, while everyone enjoys a show or a film together? Suddenly, your family is sharing in an activity you likely love, and in a way that combines a low level of stimulation with a high level of family togetherness.

A balancing of needsFinally, never lose sight of the fact that your children won’t stick to Rule #3 forever not just because it’s in their nature as children not to, but that it may be in their nature as themselves not to. Their needs may very well be different than yours. They might be extroverts or ambiverts who need some extroverted time. They, or your spouse, may thrive on a boisterous conversation: the louder and the more people talking at once, the better. Five separate conversations going back-and-forth across the dinner table, mixed together with compliments to the chef and requests to pass the mashed potatoes, may absolutely energize someone else, even while it sucks you dry. And that’s OK!

A few paragraphs ago I disparaged the internet cliche of the “Just leave me alone, everyone!” introvert, but cliches often exist for a reason. We don’t like to talk about it much, but I believe introverts’ tendency to focus on our inner world can tip the wrong direction and slide towards selfishness. I know it can in me.

Find the right balance. Give your kids the time they need to be loud. Let them shout and giggle and make funny voices and tell silly jokes. Let all six of them do it at the same time, to the point that you honestly don’t know who is listening to who. I try to do this as much as I can, but when it just gets to be too much, I raise three fingers and wait for everyone to notice the silent reminder I’m giving them: remember Rule #3. Let’s talk, let’s communicate, let’s share our news and our hopes and our dreams and our fears.

Let’s just take turns doing it one at a time.

Filed under: Introvert Parent, Introverts]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/09/coping-with-noisy-children-as-an-introvert-parent/feed/0mripplingerfamily-eating-at-the-table-619142_640Princess cereal face-offhttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/02/princess-cereal-face-off/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/02/princess-cereal-face-off/#respondTue, 02 May 2017 13:00:20 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3215Continue reading Princess cereal face-off]]>Some people are all about wine — they know how to sniff it, taste it, savor it. Others are foodies. They know the taste of every obscure spice you never even knew existed. Me? I’m all about morning grains. Welcome to the latest installment of Cerealizabowl, my occasional series documenting my lifelong love of breakfast cereal.

Today I seek to answer a question first posed by the Evil Queen in 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: “Magic mirror on the wall, which is the fairest princess cereal of them all?” I recently spotted two new cereals in the Best Aisle of the Grocery Store, each featuring a different Disney princess. Me being me, I had to try them both. Would they sing “Be Our Guest” in my breakfast nook? Or would they make me proverbially prick my finger on a spindle and fall asleep until lunch?

Disney Princess CerealMy three daughters love the princesses — any princess, be it Belle, Leia, or Peach, so I knew they’d love this cereal. As for myself, I wasn’t so sure. At first glance, this is a YALCC — Yet Another Lucky Charms Clone. Oats, marshmallows of different shapes and colors… does Lucky the Leprechaun have a lawyer? Maybe he filled his pot of gold with the spoils of many a successful copyright lawsuit?

But Disney Princess cereal has a new twist. It’s strawberry flavored! This, too, has been done before (Strawberry Cheerios, anyone?), but it’s so tasty, I don’t mind a bit.

The real joy of Disney Princess cereal comes in its marketing. First, Kellogg’s took a play from the 1990s comic book market and released this cereal with four different covers, I mean boxes. Each one features a different princess: Belle, Ariel, Jasmine, or Rapunzel. Do you think my daughters were satisfied with just one? Oh no, they needed all four.

However, the part that thrilled me most was each box featured a “prize.” This was a great throwback to the days of a toy in every cereal box. When I was growing up, the first thing I did upon opening a box of cereal was root through it in search of the included toy. Most cereals don’t offer toys inside the box anymore, which is a shame because passing on traditions to our children is important, you know? Though the prizes were simply items to cut out of the back of the box (a bookmark, a picture frame, a tiara, and a doorknob decoration), I appreciated the effort.

Disney Moana cereal
I know Moana isn’t technically a princess, but as Maui himself says, “If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you’re a princess.” And for the purpose of this cereal face-off, she needs to be a princess, because while strawberry Lucky Charms Disney Princess cereal is good, Moana cereal is awesome.

Moana cereal is made of corn puffs rather than oats, and its pieces are larger, puffier, and much airier than Disney Princess cereal. But what really sets it apart is the taste.

I don’t have the most discriminating palate in the world. (Case in point: my favorite food is breakfast cereal.) I can’t put a bite of food into my mouth and instantly recite all of its ingredients the way my wife can. So it wasn’t so strange that I couldn’t place what Moana cereal tasted like when I first took a bite. But neither could I with the second bite, the third, or even the first bowl. The only words that came to mind were: wow, oh man, and nom nom nom.

Eventually, I decided it tasted like raspberries, but now I think it’s more of a vanilla taste. Either way: delicious. And after you add milk to it? Well, remember the old commercials where milk is poured into Lucky Charms and a rainbow instantly sprouted right out of the bowl? That actually happens when you add milk to Moana cereal. Whoever made this cereal can rightfully smile upon us and say, “You’re Welcome.”

I should also mention I did not even get a bite out of the first box of this cereal that entered my house. My kids loved it so much, they devoured it all in one breakfast. Good kids, all of them — darn good kids. They’ve come to appreciate the finer things in life.

Filed under: Cereal]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/05/02/princess-cereal-face-off/feed/0mripplingerCerealizabowlprod_img-6465515_belleIMAG0443Small groups help overwhelmed introverted parentshttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/04/25/small-groups-help-overwhelmed-introverted-parents/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/04/25/small-groups-help-overwhelmed-introverted-parents/#respondTue, 25 Apr 2017 13:00:18 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3089Continue reading Small groups help overwhelmed introverted parents]]>My previous article on being an introverted parent has become one of my most-read articles ever, and I couldn’t be happier about that — thank you all so much for your interest. Being the father of six children plus the world’s most introverted introvert can make for an… interesting life from time-to-time, especially if you define “interesting” as “omigosh I feel so overwhelmed I swear the walls are closing in.” But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It just takes some coping mechanisms, and today’s article is about one of my favorites — and one of my children’s favorites, too.
“Audrey Hepburn: Many-Sided Charmer,” LIFE Magazine, December 7, 1953 (Link)

Audrey Hepburn, by all accounts, was an introvert. When she described her ideal weekend (see picture at right), she might as well have been describing mine. I’m a classic introvert in that time spent alone leaves me refreshed, energized, and blissful, while too much time with other people — any other people — leaves me tired, worn out, and dazed. When my weekend comes close to what Audrey describes, I feel like her dancing in Funny Face:

But when I spend a weekend socializing, I feel more like her in My Fair Lady, planning my revenge and muttering, “Just you wait, ‘Enry ‘Iggins.”

Image via Giphy

This is all pretty standard for introverts, but what if you’re an introverted parent? Our kids need our love, but almost just as much, they need our time. What happens when they need to be with you when all you want is to be alone? What happens when there are six of them who need you? That’s a sure-fire recipe for overwhelm, so what’s a loving parent to do?

Small Group Sessions
Any introvert who has survived formal schooling has an instinctual, negative reaction to the phrase “small groups,” because it is a reminder of times we were forced to socialize with others, even if it made us uncomfortable. But take the phrase out of the context of school, and it’s exactly what we often want. A quiet cup of coffee with a couple of friends is usually (read: always) preferable to a wild time at a loud and large party.

Why not apply this same small group mentality to time spent with your kids? When I look back over just the last few months, some of the kid activities I have enjoyed the most were small group activities, including:

The time just my two oldest boys and I went to see Star Wars: Rogue One

The time just my three girls and I went out for shopping and froyo

A couple of times when my eldest daughter stayed home with me while everyone else went to a party

Small group time is still time spent with your kids, which they absolutely crave, but as a bonus, there are fewer of their siblings demanding your attention, which leaves more available for the ones present. From the introverted parent’s perspective, since it’s not all the kids at once, it’s less overwhelming, less noisy, and more intimate. And I don’t think you have to be the father of six, like me, to find positives in small groups. This is something any introverted parent with two or more children can benefit from.

One-on-one time
Perhaps even better is a slight variation on the small group session: one-on-one time. My wife and I have long been big believers in the importance of each of our children getting a bit of alone time now and then with each of us. All of the benefits of small group time, both for the children and for us, apply, but even more so because here the group is a duo.

The only negative to this technique is the more children you have, the more one-on-one sessions you need to have if you wish to give all your children equal attention. (And who wouldn’t?) Too many of these in succession can get you right back into an overwhelmed state, just via a thousand small paper cuts instead of one big stab. So spread them out, a little at a time.

Don’t forget your spouse
There’s one vital consideration you have to make before scheduling small group sessions with your children every weekend from now until October. What are your spouse’s needs?

I mentioned one of my favorite recent small group activities (a one-on-one, actually) was a time when my eldest daughter and I stayed home together while the rest of the family attended a birthday party. This same day is one of my wife’s least favorite days in recent memory, because it happened on a Sunday, a day on which she has a strong preference for the entire family to stay together.

The time you and some of the children are away is the time your spouse is left with fewer family members; if your spouse is an extrovert, that may not be an ideal situation for him or her. Alternatively, if your spouse is also an introvert, think about how he or she will feel flying solo with the larger portion of your children while you’re off having a small group or one-on-one adventure. You’ll probably have to return the favor by switching roles at some point and letting him or her have some small group time.

Also remember: children keep ledgers. Your daughter will remember the time four months ago you went on a solo trip with her brothers, and she’ll want to know when she gets to have her turn. Keep it fair. When you plan a small group experience, consider at least scheduling when the children who won’t be participating get their turn.

Small group time allows for more large group time
None of this is to say that the only way an introverted parent of a large number of children can be happy is to spend time with subsections of the family. While kids will love their one-on-one and small group times with Mommy or Daddy, they absolutely crave and need lots of time in which the whole family is together.

But when every family activity is a whole family activity, this introverted parent feels like he’s falling apart. Small group time is time to recharge and time to take a fresh perspective, all while continuing to spend time with your children. It helps me to stay laser-focused, but not inward, on myself. Instead, it keeps my attention on something far more important: my children. “Introverted” is an adjective that describes us, but “parent” is the noun that describes who we are.

This month marks the one-year bookaversary of Yesterday’s Demons! My debut novel was published in eBook on April 12, 2016, and the paperback edition followed on April 22, 2016.

I’ve mentioned many times before how the publication of my novel was a dream come true. Even one year later, it’s just as thrilling as the first day I saw my book — my book, you guys, omigosh I wrote this — listed on Amazon.com.

If you haven’t read it yet, visit my Yesterday’s Demons page for a sample chapter, character introductions, and purchasing links. If you like YA-friendly fantasy or JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star, you’re going to love it.

And since a bookaversary is grounds for a celebration, I think it’s time to hand out a little treat. It’s been a long time since I dropped any hints about the next book in The Verdant Revival trilogy, Tomorrow’s Shepherd, and according to my Project Tracker, the second draft of that book is now 21% complete!

Besides the book’s title, I’ve previously mentioned that the book would focus not on Siv (the protagonist of Yesterday’s Demons), but on Siv’s friend Fritz. The Verdant Revival features three main characters — Siv, Fritz, and Cassie — and the three of them take turns being the main character.

It’s time I dropped some new information about it, so here goes. On Twitter, when I reached the 100,000-word milestone during the writing of the book’s first draft, I mentioned the 100,000th word was “gravity.” What I didn’t mention was… that’s sort of a spoiler, albeit one you can file under “When I read the book I’ll look back on this and say, ‘Ahh OK I get it now!'”

But to be more specific and less annoyingly coy, I’ll also say that “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked is a big, key number in my personal soundtrack for Tomorrow’s Shepherd. So many of the lyrics apply to the story of Fritz and his efforts to learn how to wield his power of hyper-intuition, especially:

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap!

(Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz)

That’s all the hinting I can give you for now. I’m only 21% done with the second draft, after all. But I can’t wait to get this one into your hands.

Deus vobiscum.

Filed under: Status Update, The Verdant Revival, Tomorrow's Shepherd, Yesterday's Demons]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/04/18/happy-bookaversary-yesterdays-demons/feed/0mripplingerYesterdays Demons Cover Final (Small)ProjectTracker-2017-04-14A culture of iterationhttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/04/11/a-culture-of-iteration/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/04/11/a-culture-of-iteration/#respondTue, 11 Apr 2017 13:00:38 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=3033Continue reading A culture of iteration]]>For any new readers who aren’t aware, I’m a software engineer and team lead in my day job. Recently, I was given the opportunity and the privilege of contributing some articles about my company’s engineering culture to the company’s blog. The first was posted last week. Check it out!

I know it came out a year ago, but I’m hopelessly behind the times. I don’t see most movies until they come to Netflix or DVD.com, even movies I really want to see. And I really wanted to see Batman vs. Superman. The first time in movie history Batman and Superman shared the screen? Sold! Wonder Woman joined them, too? I’m there opening night (in spirit anyway)! It has cameos from The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman? Shut up and take my money!

I knew it didn’t get positive reviews, to put things generously. But I figured, I’m a fan! It was made for me! I’ll love it! And the trailers looked amazing. That shot of the DC Trinity on screen together for the first time…?

Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Glorious! I don’t think I stopped smiling for days after seeing that first trailer.

And then, just a couple of weeks ago, I finally saw the movie, and… and..

And I felt like Barry Allen visiting his dad in prison.

Much like the Transformers live action films, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice is what I call a YouTube movie. I’ll watch individual scenes from it over and over and over. But the movie as a whole? Never again.

So how did this one fail so badly? Let me count the ways:

Too DarkHey, I know how it is with comic book hero meet-ups: first, they fight, then they band together. But the fight between Batman and Superman was more than just fisticuffs. Batman was going to kill Superman. That’s not just too dark for me, that’s too dark for Batman! Didn’t anyone remember his “no kill” rule?

Batman was also way too liberal with the use of machine guns on the Batmobile and the Batplane. A few times, explosions caused by vehicular gunfire pretty clearly killed bad guys. Maybe it’s just not cool in modern day America, but Superman is not the only hero with a no kill rule. Batman is, too.

It was a filmed comic book script.I once looked forward to another Zack Snyder directed comic book adaptation: Watchmen. And once was enough for me on that one, too, because I felt like it was too literal an adaptation of the comic book. Specifically, it was in the pacing. It was paced like a comic book, not a movie. Batman vs. Superman had the same problem.

For example, there’s a scene in Batman vs. Superman where we hard cut to the front yard of a Kansas farmhouse. Clark Kent is looking at the stars. His mother walks up to him and gives him some advice. Then, cut. Next scene.

In comics, this works fine. It’s a one-page scene, and a narration box at the top left of the page says, “Smallville, Kansas… The Kent family farm…” But in a film, I’d barely even processed that we were back at Clark’s boyhood home in Smallville, Kansas before the scene was over. It felt extremely fast-paced — Flash-paced, you might say — and not in a pleasant way.

“Save Martha!”
So this one is well-documented, and I don’t need to beat a dead horse here. But let me just emphasize, again, that Batman was ready to murder Superman the same way a common criminal once murdered his parents, and if that weren’t wrong enough, he was stopped only when he learned his mother and Clark’s mother had the same first name.

Now that’s just dumb. But what makes it worse is: Batman should have already known Martha Kent’s first name at that point. We know Superman has figured out Batman’s identity because, during their fight, he calls Batman “Bruce.” But at Lex Luthor’s party, it is strongly implied that Bruce also knows Clark is Superman, what with his pointed criticism of the Daily Planet’s coverage of Superman. And the film’s climax reveals Lex Luthor has figured out Superman’s identity also.

Now I’m OK with Lex Luthor determining Superman’s identity, so long as the greatest detective in the world also knows, especially since Batman has been obsessed for two years at this point with preparing himself to face this “alien threat.” But the man who is always prepared for anything would also have run a full dossier on Mr. Clark Kent. He’d know where he lives, what car he drives, his annual income, his favorite breakfast cereal, who he spends his time with, and who his family members are.

But I’m supposed to believe that Batman only realized Clark’s mother and his mother shared a first name moments before driving a Kryptonite spear through Superman’s chest?

The standard Picard facepalm is not enough for this one. Only the Picard double facepalm suffices.

On the bright side, Wonder Woman was awesomeI called Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice a YouTube movie because I will watch scenes from it over and over again. So I don’t want to be a complete negative nelly. There was a lot I really liked in this film.

Batman’s costume looked great — like right off the pages of Frank Miller’s Year One or Dark Knight Returns great.

The secret entrance to the Batcave opened underwater, and the Batmobile had to jump off a ramp to reach it. I was giddy.

You could feel the love between Clark and Lois. I’m a fan of stories in which those two are married, so I dug that.

“Maybe it’s the Gotham City in me. We just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns.”

The modern takes on Alfred and Lex Luthor were bold and worked really well for me. Today’s rich folks may not have butlers, but they do have directors of security. And Lex felt like an evil Mark Zuckerberg. I loved it.

The picture of Wonder Woman from World War I. The surveillance footage of The Flash in action. The underwater camera that caught a glimpse of Aquaman. The glimpse into the origin of Cyborg! Justice League, baby, Justice League!

And this. Every… single… moment. Of this:

As soon as Superman and Batman stopped fighting, and as soon as Wonder Woman joined the boys, the whole movie took an 180-degree turn for the better. Those final ten or fifteen minutes are my favorite scenes from any superhero movie that doesn’t star Heath Ledger as The Joker.

And I guess that’s why despite the fact that Zack Snyder disappointed me with Watchmen, despite the fact that he disappointed me with Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, I’m still going to be there on opening night (which is to say, one month to the day after it becomes available from DVD.com) for Justice League. It stuck the landing.

There’s a very meta moment in the first trailer for Justice League where Commissioner Gordon tells Batman, “It’s good to see you playing well with others again.” On the surface, this is a hint at the Bat-family, and past Batman partners like Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing. But it’s also a clear statement from Warner Bros. that its next DC Comics film isn’t going to be like the first 95% of Batman vs. Superman. It’s going to be more like that last 5%: fun and hopeful.

I’m sure hopeful that one doesn’t turn out to be a YouTube movie, too.

Filed under: Superheroes]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/04/04/i-wanted-to-love-batman-vs-superman/feed/1mripplingerbatman-v-superman2rzev1hqdefaultI’ve written for Batman and X-Men (sort of)https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/03/28/ive-written-for-batman-and-x-men-sort-of/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/03/28/ive-written-for-batman-and-x-men-sort-of/#respondTue, 28 Mar 2017 12:00:13 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=2617Continue reading I’ve written for Batman and X-Men (sort of)]]>Yesterday’s Demons was not my first published work. That honor goes to Batman #455, cover dated October 1990. Did I write the main story in this issue? No. Did I write the backup story? No… it didn’t even have one. What I wrote and what was published in this issue was… a letter!
Image: DC Comics

Dear KC and Denny,

I have just finished BATMAN #450 and I can only describe it in one word. WOW! The art was superb, as we have all come to expect from Jim Aparo, but the storyline was most excellent and intriguing. I could never imagine a Joker who couldn’t laugh at things, or refused to tell jokes. It will be very fascinating to see a three-way duel between the Joker, Batman, and Mr. Base. My only complaint is that Bruce shipped Tim off to Japan. Oh, well. I guess I would do the same after what the Clown Prince of Crime did to the old Boy Wonder.

Keep up the tremendous work — this is the best comic on sale today.

Mike Ripplinger

That right there is thirteen-year-old me trying to sound studious, professional, and about double my age at the time. If you want to know what I was really like at that age, check out the contribution I made to Uncanny X-Men #282 about one year later. Uncanny X-Men #282 features the first appearance of Bishop and the first appearance of my name in a Marvel comic. Here I am not making any effort at all to appear calm and rational. This is just me being the fourteen-year-old fanboy I was.

Image: Marvel Comics

Dear X-Crew:

Concerning UNCANNY X-MEN #277, I can’t do a single thing until I write you on this issue. Incredible! First-rate! Phenomenal! Superlative! Gambit!

I know you’re sayng “Huh?” to this last remark, so let me explain. Gambit is my favorite X-Man and this issue featured him the most since #273, where the Wolvie fight was great. To see him say to the fake Wolverine, “Bang, you dead” nearly brought tears to my eyes. That’s how much I like Gambit. Keep him around for a long time, but keep him mysterious.

More reasons UNCANNY #277 was great. The script (“Bang, you dead”), the art (namely page 6, frame 7; page 19, frame 3, and, of course, page 24, frame 1), the return of Colossus in metal form (even if he is controlled by Shadow King. But could Piotr rejoin the X-Men? Please!), Gambit, Professor X’s return to Earth (do I see the leader the mutant teams need so badly?), Gambit, and Gambit.

You don’t know this, but I like Gambit.

So, make Colossus and Rogue X-Men again, and keep Gambit in the team. Or I’ll meet you in a dark alley and say, “Bang, you dead.”

Mike Ripplinger

Hoo boy, I should have won the Pulitzer for that one, shouldn’t I?

What I remember most about these letters is that I just knew both of them would be accepted for publication. I remember arriving at the comic book store’s parking lot the day Batman #455 was available and thinking to myself, “The letters on this issue’s editorial page will be about #450, and mine will be there.” And after I bought it, I remember returning to the car and just casually mentioning to my dad, “Yeah, so they published my letter in Batman.” And I just knew they were going to publish my Ode to Gambit in Uncanny X-Men, too. It was an early example of the intuition I would learn to listen to more often later in life.

Another memory of having these letters published was that they got me a pen pal! A man from Nigeria wrote me a letter after seeing my name and address published in Batman #455. I exchanged a couple of letters with him until the letters started to request that I ask “Mommy and Daddy” to send him money and American clothes. To make this easy for me, he even included his clothing sizes. It was like an early 90s, pre-Internet version of a Nigerian prince email scam.

I’m not sure whether or not they’re even still publishing letters to the editor in comic books these days. Maybe such discussion now takes place entirely on message boards and on Twitter. But having these letters printed in two of my favorite comic books sure was a thrill to me back when I was a teenager. And you know what? It still is.

Excelsior!

Filed under: Personal, Writing]]>https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/03/28/ive-written-for-batman-and-x-men-sort-of/feed/0mripplingerbatman-455-coverbatmanletteruncanny-x-men-282-coverxmenletterBeing an introvert parent with a large familyhttps://michaelripplinger.com/2017/03/21/being-an-introvert-parent-with-a-large-family/
https://michaelripplinger.com/2017/03/21/being-an-introvert-parent-with-a-large-family/#commentsTue, 21 Mar 2017 13:00:41 +0000http://michaelripplinger.com/?p=2711Continue reading Being an introvert parent with a large family]]>When published five years ago, Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking opened the floodgates of articles, blogs, and more books on the topics of introversion and extraversion. For me, this discussion has been eye-opening and life-changing. I understand things about myself I never did before. It turns out I am profoundly introverted, so much so that I’ve earned perfect scores on “How introverted are you tests?” and ranked 90% introverted or higher on personality type surveys.

I read a lot about my fellow introverts and our challenges and victories, and I’ve found one common theme in particular that bears mentioning. This is purely unscientific, but in my experience, I’ve found that when it comes to parenting, introverts tend to favor small families. I feel like the ideal number of children for many introverts is zero to two. And I’ve definitely gotten the impression that anything considered a “large” family is nerve-wracking or downright horrifying for a lot of introverts.

Me and all six of my kiddos with a family friend.

So all that being said — hi, I’m the world’s most introverted introvert, and I am the father of six children. Being the highly introverted father of a large family carries with it lots of challenges, but even more rewards.

Noisy people everywhere, everywhenThe number one challenge: you’re always with a large group.

One of the primary differences between extroverts and introverts is the effect of social interaction upon us. It’s energizing to extroverts and draining to introverts. Some introverts unwind after a day of work in a chaotic, loud, open concept office by going home and spending a quiet evening with their partner and children, or with a small group of friends, or — the introvert cliche — alone. This downtime is necessary. It’s how we recharge, so we’re able to return to our busy, busy, busy job the next day. But for me, there is no such thing as retreating home to myself or to a small group. I live with seven other people. Some days, I’m with smaller groups during the work day than in the evening.

My situation is perhaps compounded by the fact that all six of my children are nine years old or younger, and they’re perfectly normal for those ages — which is to say, they demand a lot of attention. They need interactions with me, guidance from me, fun time with me, discipline from me. They each need this every day, and not just for a few minutes per day. And did I mention there are six of them?

The lack of solitude or even small group time can be overwhelming. The demands put on my attention can be overstimulating. And then there’s the noise. My three-year-old and one-year-old are loud. They can’t help it. They don’t understand “inside voice” and “outside voice.” When they are angered or wronged, their reaction is always an 11; they don’t know how to respond at a lower, more subdued level. And as for the older children, sometimes they fight and yell loudly, as kids do, but most of the time they get along and play together with so much excitement they… still yell loudly. They shout when they’re excited, they all talk at the same time, and their raucous belly-splitting laughter is the best sound in the world… but it’s still loud. Regular, normal familial contact — conversation, a family meal — can be tiring at best and overwhelming at worst due to volume level and the number of overlapping voices.

Despite the challenges, I wouldn’t trade my situation for any other, and the primary reason why has to do with another defining trait of introverts: we crave meaningful relationships. We hate phoniness, we hate superficiality. Instead of idle chit-chat about the weather, we’d rather have a deep conversation about our innermost thoughts or dreams or those of others. By our choice, we may have far fewer friends than many others, but after we’ve decided on a friend, we go all-in.

Our spousal relationship is probably the deepest, most meaningful one we’ll ever have, but we all have at most just one spouse. (Well, except for polygamists, I guess.) Having a large family means having more of the most meaningful non-spousal relationships you’ll ever have: parental ones. Your relationship with your child is one in which the child is entirely dependent on you for physical care, affection, spiritual guidance, and education. Your children are young and innocent, and they want to hear and grok everything you have to say. It’s an introvert’s ideal relationship!

It is an honor and a privilege — and a great responsibility — that I get to provide an example to six little ones. Many introverts feel we’re misunderstood by society, possibly even marginalized. The thesis of Susan Cain’s Quiet is that the world has an extrovert ideal and doesn’t place enough value on introverts. As a parent, you get to change that… at least for your children. I try to show my children that a leader doesn’t have to be a tyrant and that words spoken softly can still have a loud impact. If we want the world to look at introversion and extraversion as two separate but equal ideals, we have to start teaching it somewhere.

How to focus outward when we want to focus inward?There’s so much more I could say on this topic, and I will. This is the first in a planned series of articles about being an introverted parent. This series is not intended to lecture anyone, or to tell anyone how many children they should have. I hope that it speaks to introverted parents with any number of children. This also isn’t meant to brag about how great introverts are, or about how great I am. Quite the opposite, it’s part of my self-discovery journey, because — confession time — I often don’t know what the heck I’m doing.

But here’s a hard truth that no amount of self-deception can change. While I might not like to admit it, left unchecked, selfish and self-centered is precisely what I can become thanks to my introversion. And being selfish doesn’t jive very well with parenthood, a rather permanent state of life that demands near-constant sacrifice for the well-being of your children, especially in their first couple of decades. So how can I balance the sacrifices I must make (and want to make) for my family, while at the same time reminding myself that self-care isn’t selfish and is necessary to keep me in a state of being a responsible, loving, unselfish parent?

If you’re an introverted parent, I’d love for us to figure out the answer to that question together. What are your biggest challenges? What brings you the most joy? Leave a comment here, send me a message on Twitter, or use the Contact page to send me a direct message.